Unidirectional telemetry system

[0002] This application claims benefit to U.S. Provisional Application 60/042,216 filed Mar. 31, 1997.

[0003] The present invention relates to telemetry systems and more particularly to telemetry systems for remote data acquisition.

[0004] Telemetry systems used for remote data monitoring are known in a variety of different applications including “Local LAN” Systems for example hospital record keeping, and “Body LAN”, for example monitoring soldier biological vital signs in a battlefield situation. Conventionally, data telemetry employs a bi-directional communications link wherein both a network controller and transmitting sensors each operate as transponders. Conventional telemetry systems include time and frequency division multiplexing systems. In a conventional telemetry system, the network controller receives a radio signal from the transmitting sensors and converts the signal to a digital format providing the measured data. The network controller also operates to transmit synchronization and/or acknowledgment information to the transmitting sensors. The transmitting sensors operate to receive the synchronization and/or acknowledgment information as well as to transmit the radio signal measured data. Accordingly, in a conventional telemetry system, the remote transmitting sensors also act as receivers and the central receiver also acts as a transmitter. The communication link between the central receiver and the transmitting sensors, therefore, is bi-directional and synchronously communicates, typically, in time or frequency or both.

[0005] U.S. Pat. No. 5,537,397 issued Jul. 16, 1996 entitled “Spread ALOHA For CDMA Data Communications” discloses a method of providing multiple access to a data communications channel wherein transmitters spread a data signal spectrum according to a code spreading sequence. In order to simplify the system by obviating the need for multiple receivers in a receiving hub for interpreting differently coded data transmissions, the hub station transmits a control signal which is received by the transmitters to advance or retard the timing of the data transmission in order to reduce the probability of fatal interference between two or more transmitted signals. Accordingly, the transmitters operate as transponders and a single receiver is able to receive the transmitted data serially. As can be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art, both the network controller and the transmitters operate as transponders. Disadvantageously, a transponder is more costly to implement and requires more power to operate than a pure transmitter. As the number of sensors to monitor increases, so does the cost and power required for implementation of a bi-directional telemetry system. There is a need, therefore, for a lower cost, lower power telemetry system, that maintains the robust transmission performance of the known synchronized and acknowledged telemetry systems.

[0006] It is an object of the present invention to provide a low cost monitoring system.

[0007] It is a further object of the present invention to provide a system for remote monitoring of a plurality of sensors from a single receiver.

[0008] It is a further object to provide a robust and reliable unidirectional telemetry system for remote data acquisition.

[0009] A telemetry system comprises a plurality of transmitters operating autonomously relative to each other, each transmitter transmitting a packet over a first predetermined transmit time duration. A monitoring receiver receives the packet within a second predetermined receive time duration. The first predetermined transmit time duration is less than the second predetermined receive time duration and there is an absence of an acknowledgment signal from the receiver to the transmitter.

[0010] It is a feature of the present invention that a plurality of beacons transmit data to a receiver and the beacons do not receive synchronization or acknowledgment information, thereby providing a lower cost telemetry system due to the exclusive transmit operation of the beacons.

[0011] Advantageously, a system according to the teachings of the present invention provides a low cost, robust, and reliable unidirectional telemetry system for remote monitoring of a plurality of sensors.

[0012] Embodiments of the invention will now be described by way of example and with reference to the following drawings in which:

[0013] FIG. 1 is a block diagram of transmitting sensors and a status monitoring and car control unit receiver which together comprise a unit of a remote data acquisition system according to the teachings of the present invention.

[0014] FIG. 2 is a block diagram of multiple remote data acquisition units as shown in FIG. 1 showing the relationship to a single central locomotive unit for use in a railroad car bearing monitoring system according to the teachings of the present invention.

[0015] FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a preferred embodiment of a data packet used to transmit measured data in a remote data acquisition system according to the teachings of the present invention.

[0016] FIG. 4 is a block diagram of observation time slots and frames employed by the status monitoring receiver according to the teachings of the present invention.

[0017] FIG. 5 is a graphical representation of probability curves showing an upper bound of the probable loss of reception of a data packet as a function of system parameters.

[0018] A specific application that would benefit from a remote data collection telemetry system and the application specifically disclosed herein for purposes of illustration, is condition monitoring of wheel bearings on a railway car. Wheel bearing health of a railway car is of significant importance to train operation as well as safety. Typically, wheel bearings on a railway car are scheduled for preventative maintenance at predetermined time intervals in order to avoid a failure. Preventative maintenance of a wheel bearing involves decommissioning the railway car, disassembling the wheel bearings, cleaning portions of the bearings and replacing worn parts. If the preventative maintenance is performed more often than is necessary, the procedure is costly and train operations proceed less efficiently than what is theoretically possible. If the preventative maintenance is not performed often enough, there is an increased risk of unexpected wheel bearing failure and train derailment which is also costly. In order to achieve maximum efficiency and lowest costs, it is desirable for wheel bearing preventative maintenance to be performed only when needed and without increasing the likelihood of unexpected bearing failure. Other equally advantageous applications of the present invention include, but are not limited to, remote monitoring of utility meters, passive locations systems to retrieve stolen property, long term data collection, and data collection in locations that are difficult to access or otherwise monitor.

[0019] With specific reference to FIGS. 1 and 2 of the drawings, there is shown a remote data acquisition unit comprising a plurality of sensors 1 communicating measured data to respective beacons 3. For the purposes of the present invention, “a beacon 3” is defined as a system element that performs a transmitting function, exclusively, and does not perform a receive function. In a preferred embodiment, the transmitted signals are radio frequency (RF) signals. In a preferred embodiment, each sensor 1 measures aspects of railroad car wheel bearing health including but not limited to: temperature, vibration, and revolutions per unit time. Each bearing has one or more sensors 1 associated therewith. Each sensor 1 or group of sensors is associated with at least one of the beacons 3, to which the sensor 1 transmits measured data. Each sensor 1 transmits measured data via a suitable interconnect 2 such as copper wire to the respective beacon 3.

[0020] Each railway car is equipped with one monitoring receiver 8 for receiving signals transmitted by the beacons 3. The beacon 3 comprises sufficient intelligence to interpret and packetize the measured data from the sensor 1. The beacon 3 interprets, packetizes and converts the data to a radio frequency (RF) signal for wireless transmission to a monitoring receiver 8. Accordingly, the monitoring receiver 8 passively receives or observes the RF signals transmitted by the plurality of beacons 3 associated with a single railway car. The monitoring receiver 8 does not transmit any synchronization or acknowledgment information to the beacons 3. The term “observes” in the context of the present invention refers to reception of a transmitted signal and an absence of a transmitted signal back to the transmitters for purposes of synchronization or acknowledgment.

[0021] The monitoring receiver 8 assembles and sends data received from all of the beacons 3 to a car control unit 9, also on the railway car, over a suitable interconnect such as copper wire. The monitoring receiver 8 and car control unit 9 are physically a single piece of equipment. The car control unit 9 communicates over the wire using any conventional bi-directional and synchronized link to a locomotive control unit 13 which is physically housed in the train engine. Each railway car is equipped with one car control unit 9 communicating with the monitoring receiver 8. A plurality of receivers 8 and car control units 9 are associated with a respective plurality of railroad cars that together comprise a single train. All of the car control units 9 communicate with a locomotive control unit 13 (LCU). With all bearing data for a given amount of time consolidated in the single LCU 13, the LCU processes the data and either alerts train personnel concerning the status of one or more wheel bearings, or may initiate some form of automated control over train functions such as procedures to stop the train if sensor readings indicate an imminent failure.

[0022] Operation of the remote data acquisition unit 10 is as follows. Each beacon 3 contains electronic intelligence to receive and packetize data measured by the sensor 1. Each beacon 3, operating independently of every other beacon 3 and asynchronously with the receiver, transmits the packetized data in a signal burst 4 for reception by the monitoring receiver 8 via a unidirectional wireless link. The signal burst 4 occurs over a first predetermined transmit time duration. The beacon 3 employs a conventional radio frequency transmission link for data transfer, each beacon 3 transmitting a signal having the same nominal carrier frequency within manufacturing, aging, and temperature tolerances. The receiver 8 observes all transmitted signals in contiguous units of time or receive time frames 15, T seconds in duration. Each receive time frame 15 is further delineated into a plurality M, of equal length time slots 16, each time slot 16 being T/M seconds in duration, which is a second predetermined receive time duration 16. The signal burst 4 containing the packet of data is no more than and preferably approximately equal to one half of the time slot 16 in duration. In other words, the first predetermined transmit time duration is less than or equal to and preferably approximately one half of the second predetermined receive time duration. Within a predetermined transmission frame, each beacon 3 repetitively transmits the packet 4, a plurality, R, iterations. Each of the R iterations is transmitted at intervals that are distributed uniformly random over the predetermined transmission frame and independent of packet bursts 4 transmitted by other beacons 3.

[0023] With specific reference to FIG. 3 of the drawings, a single packet 4 comprises a 100 Kbit/sec signal having a duration of 1 msec or 100 bits total. The packet 4 further comprises a header 5 having X synchronization bits and Y bits identifying the transmitting beacon 3/sensor 1. Z bits of content 6, contain a value representing the respective sensor measurement at an instant in time. The packet 4 further comprises a footer 7 containing W parity bits which are used to determine whether the packet 4 was received without collision or error by the receiver 8. In an embodiment of the invention, there may be a plurality of sensors 1 associated with a single beacon 3. In the alternative embodiment, there is a single header 5 and footer 7 at the beginning and end respectively of each packet 4. The content 6, however, includes identification and measurement data for each sensor with which the beacon 3 is associated. If the parity bits in the footer 7 indicate an error, the packet 4 is discarded by the receiver 8. A request for retransmission is not sent to the beacon 3 upon detection of the error. Nor is an acknowledgment (ACK) sent to the beacon 3 to indicate successful reception of the data by the receiver 8. When two or more packets 4 from different beacons 3 collide, the resulting interference between the signals at the receiver 8 causes nonreception of the packet involved in the collision for the time slot 16. Because the beacons 3 perform a transmission function exclusively, the receiver 8 does not indicate to the beacon 3 the reception versus nonreception of data and the data is lost. A monitoring system for certain applications such as this one, however, can tolerate a certain number of lost transmissions without adversely effecting system performance. In particular, a monitoring system wherein the measurements taken do not change rapidly over time as compared to a time interval within which transmission may be assured with acceptable probability, loss of data at infrequent intervals does not affect system performance. In the event that a sensor 1 measures an out of tolerance condition, the beacon 3 can adjust the priority of transmission. The beacon 3 receives the sensor measurement, and if the magnitude of the measurement is either above or below a given set of thresholds reflecting an out of tolerance condition, the beacon 3 increases the frequency of transmission for the out of tolerance sensor to reduce the probability of data loss. The receiver then interprets the information transmitted by the beacon 3 and reports the out of tolerance condition to the car control unit for further processing.

[0024] With specific reference to FIG. 5 of the drawings, there is shown a graphical representation of a probability of loss of all repetitions of a packet burst 4 transmitted by one of the beacons 3 for all time slots 16 of duration M in a single receive time frame 15 of duration T. Probability curves are shown for a number of beacons, B, and a number of slots, M, in a frame 15 as a function of the number of repetitions, R, of the packet burst 4 over the frame 15. The probability curves Pr(B,R,M) shown assume that each beacon 3 transmits randomly and independently of the remaining beacons, but with the same number of repetitions over a transmission frame. As can be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art, for a given number of beacons and slots per frame, a repetition rate for any one packet burst 4 may be selected for the lowest probability of losing all repetitions of one of the packet bursts 4 for the frame 15.

[0025] In an embodiment of a telemetry system wherein a measurement taken by one sensor 1 either changes more rapidly than others or for some other reason is more critical to system performance, one or more of the beacons 3 may be assigned a higher number of repetitions to be transmitted per frame 15. A lower priority sensor transmits fewer bursts 4 per frame 15 relative to a higher priority sensor 1 which transmits a relatively greater number of bursts 4 per frame 15. A telemetry system, therefore, may be optimized for a specific application and for specific kind of measurements.

[0026] Other advantages of the invention are apparent from the detailed description by way of example, and from spirit and scope of the appended claims.